Hungerford allotment blog - grow your own, harvesting and vegetarian cooking. Enjoying allotment wildlife, weather and other things that catch my attention.
Enjoying time on the Marsh Lane Allotment site in Hungerford, Berkshire.
A record of successes, failures and a handy reminder for me.
From 2017 each post title brings a song to add a little extra music to the world - enjoy!
Looks like an aerial photo of a desert landscape doesn’t it? Oh, just me? It’s been quite the opposite, so much rainfall over the last week. Our 50mm raingauge had over-flowed, but I appreciate that we’ve been lucky compared to some parts of the country which are still flooded as the ground is so saturated.
We had some lovely blue sky yesterday (Sunday). Some tiny showers threatened more rain, but the wind blew the clouds away and we had a pleasant couple of hours clearing the sweetcorn patch. If the weather stays mild the weeds will love that patch of bare soil! You can see how much the grass is growing and the Calendula are still providing spots of colour.
Most of the other flowers are just seedheads now, although the verbena bonariensis still have a purple tinge and the Nicotiana has a few flowers protected under the glass table.
This seems rather unexpected in November - we’re still eating our tomatoes! They eventually turned red after being at home for a few weeks and are so tasty providing bruschetta lunches. There's home-grown basil on there but the Spring Onions are shop-bought - we simply can't grow them without slugs demolishing them. I sowed 2 long rows this year, but not one was fit to eat 😞 Any ideas?
Anyway, as you can tell, there’s not really much going on. Which is why I was staring at a plank for much of the time.
But what a plank! The moss is certainly enjoying the decaying wood. There are at least 4 different species that I can see on there.
So, here are a few moss facts: moss is a type of bryophyte (along with liverworts and hornworts) and there are over 1000 species in Britain and Ireland! The British Bryological Society (formerly known as The Moss Exchange Club) is celebrating its 100th Anniversary this year.
Mosses can be found almost anywhere in the World, from deserts to the arctic but Britain's warm-ish, wet (getting wetter) climate is perfect for lots of species. This is the only one that I think I can recognise and name at the moment - Grymmia Pulvinata. The little things that look like flower buds, setae, turning back into the pincushion are the defining feature. Cute.
So that provided the song title - sung by The Charlatans. Sing along - marvellous.
We had two visits to the allotment this cold weekend and yesterday (Sunday) everything was looking beautiful encrusted in frost.
The likelihood of pretty frost was mainly what dragged me outside. It's so easy to just remain indoors but of course, once out and surrounded by birdsong on the allotment I was glad I shifted myself.
The frost on this dandelion was just starting to thaw as the temperature edged above freezing when the Wintry sun emerged. The macro shots bring out the lovely ice features which I certainly couldn't see with the naked eye.
The temperature has been sub-zero for a few nights with day temperatures staying low. Some parts of the site haven’t had a chance to defrost at all as the low Sun doesn't reach all areas.
The ground and all the water collection points are frozen solid. I took the thick round slabs out of our buckets because I am rather fascinated by ice even though I hate, hate, HATE the cold.
You can see how thickly it's formed in this photo - I stood them up in the raised bed. I hope the pond ice isn't as thick as that smallest bucket. Male frogs apparently tend to stay in ponds, at the bottom, over Winter (females hibernate underground usually) but the ice can deprive them of oxygen if it stays for too long. I wonder why we found that dead frog last week - it was by the pond, but shouldn't have been out and about...
The houseleeks couldn’t avoid getting a frosting but they won’t mind. They're hardy little plants.
And I’m sure this moss won’t be adversely affected either. Look how sparkly it is, just starting to thaw.
The birds seemed to be enjoying the sunshine on Saturday. I think this was a flock (a charm) of goldfinches but it’s difficult to see from this angle. The robin was happy to see us with his mealworms and we saw (probably) a buzzard land in a nearby tree. So huge compared to the tiny blue tits, wrens and long-tailed tits that were flitting about.
The main reason we visited the plot on Saturday was because I need to saw some dehydrated coir compost block for making up a seed compost. Believe it or not, I had to remove my coat as I got so hot exerting myself - first time since about September ðŸ¤
The coir block is rehydrated with warm water and then we add some vermiculite.
It worked ok as a peat alternative last year, but I'm rather concerned about the
sustainability of using coir. We’re not actually going to start most of our seeds yet, but it’s exciting as they’ve been arriving in the post all week. A few different flowers this year.
January has certainly provided some beautiful skies in the mornings and evenings - this was a morning photo. You can just about see the sprinkling of snow on the dormer windows from a thick, but quick, snow shower we had in the early hours.
The jackdaws have secured their spot for another year. They pair up and stick together with a lifespan of about 5 years. We look forward to watching these two rear their young on the chimneys opposite.
And these two photos are my excuse for sharing this song by Turin Brakes. I liked the original in Mary Poppins (well, Dick van Dyke was always a favourite, even with that accent) but this version is so beautiful and the video makes me think I should stop whinging about the cold as I sit in relative comfort.
OK, I'll admit it may not be quite 33 but there was a big flock ('murder') of crows in the tree opposite our flat. They just kept flying in, a pair at a time. Then something spooked them and...off they went.
As you can see we had a nice blue-sky weekend. We should have spent longer on the allotment, but we didn't get there till late on Saturday afternoon. We did sow a packet of Bonita french marigolds, Suttons broad beans and some salad vegthough, so at least we achieved something.
The Blackthorn in the allotment hedge has flowered and it is was a proper Spring weekend.
The moss is looking rather stunning too - I need to charge the batteries on my macro camera to see these in all their miniature glory.
Our shallots have sprouted - yay! But still no frogspawn in our pond :-(
Last Wednesday I joined Ted, our Chairman, on a stall at the Hungerford Town Council meeting. The room was edged by all the volunteer groups and about 100 people turned up to find out about what we all do for the town. It was quite a good format - and we got interest from a new plotholder.
And on Friday night we had a HAHA versus the Rest of the World Skittles match - it turned out that the 'rest of the world' consisted of Steve and as there wasn't a huge turnout we decided to play as individuals rather than teams. It was a lot of fun and we made about £30 (after paying
for the room) for HAHA funds so it was worth arranging this little
off-site social gathering.
We didn't make it to the plot yesterday as we went to Newbury and then went for a walk around Bowdown Woods near Greenham Common - it was so beautiful, just a couple of weeks and the whole place will be full of bluebells.
The title is provided by Kula Shaker - great song, if a rather spurious link to this blogpost :-)
It may be traditional for Good Friday, but still too early, this year, to plant spuds (in our opinion) so I was mainly fiddling about, turning the compost and taking photos during the couple of hours spent on the plot this afternoon. The weather was drizzly but not cold (13°). This
is our trusty bench, which is likely to be replaced this year as its
falling apart, but it's supporting a lot of life and the tiny lichen and
moss patches are very pretty in macro-mode!
I was going to look up the types of lichen, but it's a lot more complex than I expected! It'll take a bit longer than I currently have, but here's a good place to start!
We know the wasps like to skim the top layer of wood for their nests; we've watched them do it over the last couple of years - fascinating.
Our rhubarb has sprung into life and appears well on its way to being a monster again this year (fingers crossed!).
Look at those intricate leaves starting to unfurl.
Forming from what looks like an egg (Or maybe I've got Easter eggs on my mind!)
Some of the raspberry canes are at last showing that they're still alive and the strawberry plants are producing fresh new shoots.
The photo below was taken after the winds last Wednesday/Thursday. The protective acrylic over my salad seedlings was snapped in half by that flying netted cage, so I've attempted to cover them - otherwise they look just too tempting for passing pheasants!
The netted cage from the other end of our plot! Wish I'd been filming
Our bottle cloches also blew away (twice). We managed to recover most of them, but the broad beans which were left unprotected are at their tastiest right now (because they're just sprouting) and a mouse has enjoyed at least one of them... We'll fill the gaps with Express seeds when we get some more cloches made up.
Such a beautiful day and 17°! So we had a very lovely few hours on the site joined by fellow plotholders, butterflies and bees! We saw large numbers of tortoiseshells and brimstone butterflies.
Tortoiseshells on Dead Nettle
Jamie finished working through the onion plot so that's ready and waiting for our sets to be delivered. I cleared all the dead growth from the strawberry plants and transplanted a couple of runners which had been pegged out in the autumn.
The raised bed is clear of weeds and moss now so I can start sowing some salad - will have to wait till next weekend, at the earliest, though. It may have felt like Summer but it soon goes chilly when the Sun gets low. No evenings on the plot for us yet!
This moss against the blue sky and sunshine is fiery!
By the way, if you saw my post from yesterday... Summer seems to be the time to propagate herbs from cuttings and the cuttings should be ~10cm, not ~4cm like mine. Caroline (a plotholder) told me that rosemary can be rooted in water - well, I can try that if my potted cuttings fail...
It had been trying to snow all day but just a bit of dandruff falling so we decided to have a couple of hours on the plot. Extremely cold with a shocking wind but not unbearable while we were busy. It stayed at about 1° and a few other plotholders were working on their plots too. Normally we wouldn't expect to see many people on site on a day like today, but everyone's so desperate to get something done whenever it's not precipitating!
We took some Freeze-Dried Mealworms for the robin. Poor little chap out in the cold :-( He very nearly ate from my hand today, but instead sat on the fencepost within a foot of me.
We decided to work on the raised bed. We hoed all the moss from it and then mixed in a little 6X natural fertiliser.
Next, we raked in a good layer of multi-purpose compost mixed with Topsoil and topped it off with Topsoil. That should keep our salad crops and beetroot happy!
Before leaving, we covered it with weed suppressant which may help warm the soil a little too - we're hoping to be able to get some sowing done over Easter...
Remembered to check the grape hyacinths. They haven't grown much since 9th March - not too surprising really.
Then back home to our lovely warm flat - only to discover I'd left the flask somewhere on site so we had to venture back out into the cold to retrieve it - Doh!!
Not so good when you see it in less detail, though still vaguely pleasing to the eye ....
But just horrible when you see it in real life!
Ugh. Weeds, moss. mud and spring onion remains. All thriving under the netting which we hadn't cleared away.
Now, I'd love to write the identity of this moss, but as is always the case when you start looking into these things, you find it's a much larger subject than you may originally think! Suffice to say, there's a LOT of moss in the UK!
I'm pleased to say that by the time we left the plot today the area was weed free, dug and looking much more loved - we're hoping that the moss will just die off and the birds can eat up any slug eggs they find!
